Dresden dementia stalled by revival of East German memories

Cross the threshold into the Alexa senior residence in Dresden and you step back in time.

For the past 18 months, staff here have conducted an unusual – but successful – experiment in living: reactivating residents’ failing memories with long-vanished East German objects.

The experiment began by fluke when home director Gunter Wolfram organised a cinema evening to show old East German films. For decoration, he rolled in an old GDR “Troll” scooter.

In the end the scooter upstaged the films, he said, as residents who had stopped talking entirely suddenly opened up again.

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“Some said how they used to ride a Troll, and took their first girlfriend with them,” said Mr Wolfram. They might not know their name anymore, he said, but they remembered where the ignition was and the trick with the kick-stand.

Encouraged by the unexpected effect of the scooter, Mr Wolfram and his team began scouring small ads, flea markets and online auction sites for GDR furniture and other knick-knacks in the hope of sparking further memories.

Some 18 months on, Alexa has revived a little piece of East Germany in the Saxon capital. As well as the scooter, the home found and installed an old mass-market Ratiomat kitchen. They also have transformed one corner of the home into a GDR store with “Intershop” and “HO Kaufhalle” signs, with boxes of familiar, now defunct, GDR products – from lentils to tights – as well as bank notes with Karl Marx and other long-vanished faces.

Coal oven

In another room, with 1970s orange-and-brown wallpaper, residents can read old East German magazines in a GDR armchair beside an old tiled coal oven.

The results of this "reminiscence therapy" have exceeded expectations. With 130 residents, staff say the effect on the 20 or so with various stages of Alzheimer's has been like a hybrid of the movies Goodbye, Lenin! and Cocoon.

“Many can eat again on their own, or go to the toilet independently,” said therapist Alicia Schöppe to MDR television. “The bed-bound ones have bounced back.”

Experts have confirmed that the Dresden experience is not a fluke, but proves how the brain stores – and can reactivate memories – even if its main memory core has deteriorated.

Dr Vjera Holthoff-Detto, a specialist in Berlin, told MDR television: “To reactivate the whole image, it’s enough to find a key to one pillar . . . that can then light up other pillars.”